Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Quickly to say that I have been awarded best experimental art film by La Jolla Indie Film Festival. Thank you to all those involved. Now to the American Film Market with The gun the cake and the butterfly.

Tuesday, 22 October 2013

“A brave account of an exciting life, lived by a woman
who makes her own rules and then breaks them.”

Nigel
Daley,

President, BAFTA – Los Angeles

“I was engrossed by the film – brave, proud and sad.”

Ed
Pressman, Producer

“I enjoyed the film and found it very entertaining. It made me eager
to find out more about you and your exotic life.”

David
Korda

A very original, artistic and personal – Smanda is really putting
herself out there as a bold new filmmaker.”

Sally
Kirkland

Oscar nominated actress and Golden Globe winner

“An incredible piece of work – so brave and honest an sad and funny
all in one bold and amazing way.”

Francesca
Vinti

British
Film Institute

“I was captivated…”

Joel
Schumacher, Director

Your life is a kaleidoscope of events and deep emotions translated
into a very powerful aesthetic. I watched your movie and time stopped.”

Marina
Abramovich

"It takes huge courage to show
your own piece of art to anyone, and to show a film on a big screen, to a big
audience is courage in the extreme – AND it was a completely open and honest ,
almost disarmingly honest, autobiographical film.

I didn’t think the music was inaudible – I
loved your choice of music, and thought it acted as a really great way of
moving you thru the film. I also thought the cinematography and editing were
very beautiful. There is a compelling, whimsical tone enhanced by the use of
light which is very more-ish

I would have like to have seen more of you
in the film – we all said the same. You have something - a delightful,
slightly vulnerable, beguiling honest charm which is lost when someone else
tries to do it". Amanda Neville BFI

Saturday, 19 October 2013

I am in two minds where to live. I arrived back this morning to pissing rain, and immediately went to bed. I met a charming man on the plane and talked for most of the journey. However this did not make up for my missing Los Angeles almost immediately. This week was busy, I was exhausted, after my film The gun the cake and the butterfly, won Bel Air's Best Edit and Best film chosen by an audience my head can just about fit through the bedroom door, despite gracing the cover of LAHollywood Weekly. I love Los Angeles and their ability to open a box rather than close it. I opened LA Femme with it, the people who put on these festivals are creative and adore independent film. (I am so happy the I was nominated as best Trailer and the New Media Film Festival, best art film NYCIFF, best art film at Ischia Global Film Festival, The Lina Wertmuller Prize, nominated as best female director Burbank International Film Festival, Bel Air Film Festival best edit and best film chosen by an audience) So much is is due to the people I employed to help me, a family of creative people. Justine Glenton should win best actress, Boris Ristic's music has been much congratulated, editing and art direction by Behsat Ahment, Roby Meola, Hector Abaunza, cinema photographers, Jack English, Alexander Webster, Fredrik Andersson, Boris Ristic, and George Blodwell and Tim Willis. So much help, love and enthusiasm. I am thrilled.
My film is contradictory but I believe what Julie Burchill says, "Consistency is the hobgoblin of the small mind" I love to show madness, my madness and sanity altogether. Oscar Wilde said that "It showed a lack of imagination"

LA FEMME HOLLYWOOD

I also decided to get a new Estate Agency, Savills to sell my house on Cheyne Walk. I would like to live twenty miles from London, perhaps its time to see a bit of green, but my uncle said it is social suicide to live in Surrey. I shall keep Beauchamp Estates and Alan Russell, but the truth is that Savills have incredible internet presence, and I want to grab the sunshine in Los Angeles while I can. The flight despite the delectable man is a bit too much for me.
Anyway I shall follow the new ideas of selling my artwork with the house and have asked the agents to mention my Car painted by Inkie the Graffitti artist. A new life is always funny, and I wish to do as much as possible with it. Someone else can enjoy the views from my bedroom and perhaps my artwork. I always love being a follower of fashion.
In the meantime I am learning how to sell a film and what it means to my purse.

Thursday, 18 July 2013

My life is full of dreams. I am sitting here on the balcony, with my film,
which I wrote, directed and produced, The gun the cake and the butterfly, being
shown in tonight at The Ischia Global Film Festival. It is run by the energetic
Pascal Vicedomini. I am thinking. He is a
visionary, with caterpillar vision, he assembles talent wit passion, creating a
totally unique experience where everyone gladly supports each other.

“ Wow, how lucky
am I, I think?” How on earth did all
this happen in a year? The truth is Pascal is instinctive, and what he likes he
likes.

He creates panels
that discuss International issues and concerts on the beach, everything is done
with joy and aplomb. Fireworks abound. I am about to win the Lina Wertmuller
prize, in remembrance of her husband, Enrico Jobb, she is the first, out of
only four women, to be nominated for an Academy Award.

This festival is
very different.

Cannes and Venice
are huge, tricky to manouvre and full of clipboard doormen who won’t allow you in. Thousands of people flock
to festivals, crowded, hot and glamorous.

Ischia is about
family, a talented family, involving friendship.

Yes I am right,
with my thoughts “What you are doing, is
what you are doing. This has always been my belief , and I am with one of my favourite
actresses of all time Natasha Kinski,(The best author in the whole planet for
me is Thomas Hardy, and Tess was my favourite heroine) she played her so well, and
French actress Emanuelle Segnier. Who is showing her film Venus and Fur
directed by husband Roman Polanski, her husband’s new film.

I keep pinching
myself. I am following my passion.

Everybody is
relaxed. 1950’s distressed glamour. Ischia is not Capri and it’s not Rome. The
famous introduce themselves,, as if you could not possibly know them. There is
something very charming about this. You cannot lobby to be a part of Pascal’s
Film Festivals, you have to be anointed to participate.

I have been
included in four festivals now, The New Media Film Festival, The New York
International Film Festival and have just been selected for the Bel Air Film
Festival. The Ischia Global Film Festival, and Have won, “The most imaginative
documentary film” in NY. I feel very chuffed. I think, “yes I did this, as a
woman for women”. I thought, I cannot be
one of the Kadashian’s who wear ‘strap on’s’ before 9.30 am in Los Angeles, I
could only be me.

I thought, I would
pinch lines wherever I could, when writing, instead of snorting them. I could not be one of those people who
did not have a line on their face and
only under their nose.

The only people
that have ever thought I was a star were London taxi drivers. I enter a cab on
the streets of London and the first question they ask is “ What films have you been
in, are you a model?” I never know what
to answer?, I do not want to disappoint the charming man driving me. However, the truth is, that despite drama
school ALRA and RADA, I liked to be hidden. As my eldest son says “A blonde has
unfair advantages over the rest of the planet, and you Mummy, can never hide”

We know through
film you can influence the world. Through pictures music and thought, you can
change what is going on. I think we can all give back and choose our own
platforms, inspiring communities to think.

Last year women
were moaning that there were too few serious positions held in the film world
by women. Few films were made by them. I thought I would have a go. I thought I would
learn and expand from the experience. Indeed I did. I thought I would use my own story, I could
be blatantly honest, cruelly so. I had no intention of acting it but combining
the script with a documentary to create the artistic world I inhabit so
merrily. I enjoyed the focus,

I thought I would
be finished in three weeks.

I was not.

The first edit I
showed my friend the composer Boris Ristic thought it was nothing like me and
that I had to be in it. So I decided at that point to intertwine my
characteristics with the other actress Justine Glenton and with the actors I
involved.

I don’t care about
failure, I care about doing and being open and vulnerable to the world, I have
put myself out there and I expect ‘judgement day’, but I am proud about what I
have accomplished and how I feel, despite, having to sell my favourite house to do it. Nobody
gave me a dime, it was all me, for good and bad.

The story of my
upbringing in Wiltshire to being tapped on the shoulder and realizing I have
just contributed to the wonderful world of female film directors. Katherine
Bigelow, Lyn Ramsey, Madonna, Jane Campion, Vanessa Redgrave, Kerry and Rory
Kennedy, Barbara Streisand and my favourite Sofia Coppola. They are bold and strong,
having the faith to follow their own voices against all odds.

Now it’s my turn,
I have entered stage right and I have no exit. I am addicted to the critics and
the applause.